Following the Lin-sanity of late, 2K Sports is doing their part to contribute to the hype machine. When Jeremy Lin was initially added to the Knicks roster his overall rating was a measly 56. On Feb. 15th, 2K Sports showed Lin some post Valentine’s Day love by boosting his overall stat to 69. Today’s update boosts Lin’s stats to a whopping 75 overall.

Jeremy Lin’s journey has been exciting to watch and his story is fascinating and marketable. Many people fall back on pointing the racial finger at coaches and scouts for failing to see Jeremy Lin’s abilities for what they are. I however look at his stats and college history and see his journey as one of happenstance and unfortunate situations.

In the beginning he was a very good high school player who took his team to a division championship. Many college scouts at that level look for supreme athletes which Jeremy Lin was not. If Lin looked like Lebron James did in high school he would have got a ton of scholarship offers. This has nothing to do with race, other than the fact that Lebron James is African American and we haven’t seen a comparable specimen who is Asian American. Even Lin admitted “I just think in order for someone to understand my game, they have to watch me more than once, because I’m not going to do anything that’s extra flashy or freakishly athletic.”

Jeremy Lin sent applications and DVDs of his games to Ivy League schools. This is as stereotypical as this story is going to get. Not because of coaches or scouts being racist but because of his cultural upbringing and parental influence. Harvard’s assistant coach Bill Holden was not initially impressed by Lin but after watching more of Lin, he saw how aggressive he was driving to the lane. Harvard guaranteed him a spot on the basketball team but do not offer athletic scholarships.

Again, Lin had a solid career. He set Harvard records and won awards but still was not overly athletic and did not dominate the competition at his level. Lin went undrafted, just like every other Ivy League player since 1995. Jeremy Lin had a strong debut in the NBA summer league, teams were interested but Lin took a lower contract to sign with his home town Warriors. Looking back this move hurt his rookie season. Getting playing time with players like Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry on the roster would be tough.

In his first year in the NBA Lin did not get much playing time but when he did he was greeted with cheers from his hometown fans. He put a lot of pressure on himself and did not perform well at home. Lin was waived to make room to sign DeAndre Jordan. When the Rockets picked Lin off of waivers they already had Kyle Lowry, Goran Dragić and Jonny Flynn. All were proven starters, Lin would have no chance getting playing time. Subsequently, Lin would be waived again in the same offseason. Lin was then signed by the Knicks to fill in their roster which was already thin at guard. The rest is history, without much racial stigma at all.

Source

This rather short demo consists of a single 4 minute quarter where the user is locked in to playing as the Dallas Mavericks in a Championship Finals rematch against the Miami Heat.

I sort of feel a bit shorted by the length of this demo because Madden 12 offered a full length game this year. You would think in a down year for the franchise where rosters won’t be updated the franchise would try to sell the game on improved gameplay. It’s also rumored that the Classic teams will not be usable online. This is very disappointing when considering what new features will actually be added this year.

The latest developer blog highlights a lot of areas of improvement that will be hard to experiment with in just 4 minutes.

Without a normal NBA season this year, 2K Sports is taking it back to the old school. It’s going to be a tough sell for most fans of the franchise but after watching the trailer there are some things to look forward to. My favorite part was the Hakeem Olajuwon “Dream Shake”.

Good bye Baron. I’ll miss you jacking up three pointers in transition and your untimely turnovers. All those injuries and poor conditioning.

Your charisma and talents had their moments. With Blake Griffin at your side you helped turn the outlook of this team around. I have always believed in your potential but you’ve never showed the will power to play the game the right way. Be a pro, take the blame and approach the game as a pro. Let this trade be a wake up call that you still have something left in the tank and you can change your ways.

I was a fan but I’ve had to shake my head at your decision making for the last time.

UPDATE 2: The NBA Elite Demo has been removed from Xbox Live and PSN

UPDATE: It sounds more and more like NBA Elite 11 is truly canceled. EA has announced they will support Roster Updates for NBA Live 10 for the entire 2010 – 2011 season.

NBA Elite 11 has been officially delayed and won’t be releasing on October 5th. Rumors are circling that EA knew the game would flop and have canceled the game completely, pushing it back to next year. If that is the case NBA 2K11 will completely dominate NBA console sales this year, without even acquiring an exclusive license.

I truly believe “delayed” means canceled in this situation. It makes no sense for EA to try to fix all their issues and release the game late when early adopters have already picked up a copy of NBA 2K11. This is the logical business decision for EA after seeing the negative feedback the demo produced. Supposedly EA will also garner a fine from the NBA for not releasing the product this year. It is unknown whether EA will rename the franchise again for next year.

I actually feel sorry for Kevin Durant for being on the cover of a game that got aborted.

NBA Jam will now be released separately later this year.

Like I predicted EA took a step back this year with their NBA franchise. NBA Elite gameplay has been revealed and its only helping it’s 2K11 competition.

Three dunks in the first few minutes? Old canned animations from NBA Live?

Hopefully the game will also be the greatest of all-time. After last years bug fest my expectations are low. However, I have a feeling that EA Sports’ NBA Elite won’t be blowing anyone away in its first attempt.

GENERAL

• Improved game performance in all arenas and camera angles.
• Corrected a framerate issue that was causing noticeable slowdown in the paint in specific arenas.
• Corrected a framerate issue that was causing noticeable slowdown during NBA D-League games.
• Fixed an issue where Coach Settings were not properly saving to the user’s Settings file.
• Addressed an issue where the user would enter into a game where there would either be no crowd present or the opposing team would not appear on the court.
• Fixed an issue where users would get NBA Blacktop rules (no intentional fouls, no 3-in-the-key, etc.) turned on when attempting to play a Quick Game.
• In-game saves should now load up correctly in the Playoffs game mode.
• Users are now able to assign any jersey number to a player, on any team, when playing outside of The Association game mode.
• Games played in the NBA D-League should now have appropriate sized crowds.
• Fixed a slowdown issue during stoppages of play with created teams.
• Made a change to where the value for headband colors is stored at. These changes can now be made through Living Roster releases once the patch is released. If you see any discrepancies, make sure and let the 2K Insider know!

GAMEPLAY

• Tuned shooting percentages across the board, particularly in the paint where more shots are now initiated with contact.
• Fixed a soft hang on an inbound where the inbounding player would miss the ball handoff from the referee.
• Plays will no longer break when the user strays slightly from the intended path.
• Both User/CPU alley-oop success has been toned down such that only realistic attempts should now be completed.
• Assists should now only be credited to the passer at appropriate times.
• Only 1 timeout is deducted from the total when the CPU calls a timeout for the user.
• The CPU should no longer pass the ball to a teammate when the recipient has a foot out of bounds.
• Bad passes should be less inaccurate now. They still happen with similar frequency, but some passes can be recovered now.
• CPU players now have better logic behind their turbo energy management (which will keep them fresher for key moments in the game).
• CPU players should now be more aware of being called for 3 second violations.
• Defensive assist is now turned off when the ball is not in play.
• The dribbler should no longer teleport back a few feet on the court following a two player steal attempt.
• Players with unique free throw stances (ex., Paul Pierce) will no longer slide into position to shoot the free throw.
• Point Guards should no longer end up out of bounds during baseline inbounds coming out of a timeout or dead ball.
• Fixed a case where the PG would run in a circle (in anticipation of receiving the ball) in the backcourt during transitions.
• Players should no longer get stuck in the post in a single player hold-ball animation (often leading to a 24-second violation) when trying to drive to the basket.
• Fixed an issue where the user was unable to give certain players their player-specific animation packages.
• Fixed an issue with a baseline layup where opposing defenders weren’t able to create contact when the animation played out.
• Addressed a specific dunk animation that would sometimes not result in a made basket despite a successful dunk.
• The user should now notice more over-the-back calls on rebounds when the boxed out player attempts a rebound.
• Improvements to the ‘walk the dog’ inbounds play including increased velocity on the inbound.
• A good number of other changes aimed towards increasing user satisfaction have also been made in this release. These will be apparent as you play the game (ex. The referee will now utilize a bounce pass rather than a chest pass when passing the ball to the shooter during free throw situations, plays will now start quicker when the user manually calls a play, etc.).

PRESENTATION

• During NBA Today/Association games, the ‘Upcoming Schedule’ overlay will no longer obstruct
• gameplay.
• Fixed an issue where the substitution overlay would sometimes briefly cover the action on the court.
• Blank overlays should no longer quickly appear/disappear during gameplay.

ONLINE

• Improved performance and stability for all online game types.
• Corrected an issue in Team-Up play where all players would sometimes see the same player (PG) listed in all substitution slots.
• Ranked game difficulty has been changed to SuperStar for Team-Up games.
• Removed the spotlights for online play only to improve performance during stoppages of play.
• Corrected an issue with the My Player Pick-Up games that would sometimes cause games to diverge upon initiation.
• Fixed an issue where online Association games would diverge at halftime if neither user skipped through the presentation sequence.
• Fixed a hang that would sometimes occur when making substitutions during an online Association game.
• Fatigue should now behave as expected during private Team-Up games.
• Fixed a hang in Who’s Online that would occur when the user scrolled quickly with a large number of friends on the list.
• Replays uploaded via GameTrack should now play properly when viewed at 2ksports.com.
• Fixed an issue with the Screenshot Upload feature that would sometimes upload an incorrect screenshot.
• Fixed an issue where a user’s consecutive win streak would get reset to zero if the user won a game where his/her opponent quit out of the active game.
• Fixed an issue in private matches with friends where all users would disconnect when attempting to play a second game.
• Fixed an issue where games in online leagues would diverge if users made changes to the default roster.
• Addressed an issue where completed ranked games would sometimes not report the results to the server.

MY PLAYER

• Fixed an issue that would cause a clone of the user’s player to be created when changing teams at the end of the Summer Circuit. Existing cloned players will be removed with this patch.
• Tuned the substitution logic such that users should no longer be substituted out only to be substituted in at the next dead ball.
• The logic that determines whether or not you get an invite to Training Camp, make the NBA team, and get an invite from an NBA team while in the NBA D-League have all been changed to be a little more forgiving.
• Resolved an issue where the 2K Insider was not informing the user of his/her contract status at the conclusion of a 10-day contract.
• Fixed a rare case that would cause a hang during the offseason following a My Player season.
• Animation packages will no longer be reset to the ‘best’ package every time a corresponding attribute is upgraded.
• The user’s ‘Drills Remaining’ value will now be properly saved as new drills are accumulated throughout the NBA/D-League season.

ASSOCIATION

• The ability for the user to upload their Association stats/standings to the blog interface on 2KSports.com has been added.
• Fixed an issue where player ratings would drop upon the successful completion of a Development Drill.
• Tuned the Player Progression system such that Shot Tendencies will progress/regress over a player’s career. Additionally, general Player Progression/Regression has been slightly increased as well.
• Fixed an issue where the number of players the user had sent down to their D-League affiliate wasn’t getting reset despite recalling players back to their NBA team.
• Fixed an issue where draft classes loaded in future years would change the age of the prospects inside the draft class. They should now have the same age they were created with.
• 10-day contracts should now work in year 2 and beyond.
• Lower rated players should now be more accepting of the ‘Role Player’ role.
• Stats accumulated during NBA D-League games will no longer register as Season/Career Highs for players.
• Corrected an issue where users were able to continue drafting players once the NBA Draft had ended.
• Users should no longer have an obstructed view of the court when performing Development Drills.
• Users should no longer be able to see the overall rating of players during the NBA Draft.
• Corrected an issue where backloaded contracts were getting incorrectly multiplied in the latter years of the contract.

Link to Forum

Hey folks, I want to reach out to everyone in the 2K Sports world and let you know that we’re diligently working on a game update for NBA 2K10. Our primary focus is on addressing the framerate issues and online concerns that are being reported. In addition to this, we are planning to address a number of other issues that you have reported to us.

Please continue to provide feedback on additional things that you would like to see tweaked. We will take a look at your suggestions over the next few days and try our best to accomplish those. Towards the end of next week, I will be publishing a full list of all the issues fixed in the patch. I’m confident you will be more than satisfied with the changes we are making to every aspect of the game.

-SimBaller

So it sounds like a patch will be coming out maybe next week? I’m hoping they include the fix for the Development Drills in Association Mode since that’s the mode I play the most.

Link

• Development Drill bug – In Association mode development drills dramatically decrease the players attributes in the areas that are supposed to be increased. This is a pretty serious bug.
• Framerate Issue during My Player mode – the framerate drops a substantial amount in certain arenas. Partly due to camera angles. Slightly unplayable.
• Framerate Issue during regular offline games – the framerate drops when the arena lights are swirling and sometimes in the post. Turning Key Zoom to Off helps. Not unplayable but definitely annoying.
• Coach Settings not used in Quick Game – Even though you save your coach settings whenever you start a Quick Game those settings are reset. For instance Auto Substitutions Off and Auto Timeouts Off are reset to On. Annoyance, should be fixed.
• Auto Save always on in Association Mode – Even though you set Auto Save to Off, it’s always on in Association Mode. Bug, should be fixed.
• Quick Substitutions bug – When making substitutions in the pop up sub menu and selecting the sets like Starters and Tall using the shoulder buttons these rosters are messed up when a Timeout is called and more substitutions are done during the timeout. The sets are named incorrectly, like the On Court set is named Starters. Substitutions just don’t happen as expected coming out of the timeout. This is actually carried over from NBA 2k9 so I doubt it’ll be fixed. Just avoid it I guess…

These are just the things I’ve found myself but it seems the game is littered with small bugs here and there. This is unfortunate since I’ve been a 2k fan for the past few years. Last year the real glaring bugs were the Quick Substitutions Problem, Freezing during Development Drills and the low Framerate during free throws. Pretty big issues last year as well.

Yet another year starting off with bugs. Just imagine if you didn’t have an internet connection, you wouldn’t even be able to receive updates. Which brings us to the point that Western developed games aren’t adequately tested becaues they know they can just patch things up with updates. It makes buying games on the release day unbearable. Patching has become the down fall of quality. Hopefully these things get fixed soon.